On-site, erectable, building partition walls are known in the prior art and the invention of this application is directed to a unique design and structure for movable partition wall systems. The invention employes panel members and modes of erection resulting in partitions of fire-resistive construction which the prior art, as far as is known, has not been able to achieve.
The prior art, movable, partition walls have utilized various expedients to retain individual partitions in position such as hooks and corresponding or accommodating slots in order to receive the hooks. Additionally, known demountable partition systems, due to the elements of construction, have entailed a considerable amount of time in erecting the wall members, all of which have added to the cost of erecting a movable partition system. In each prior art instance, as far as is known, the resultant partition wall has not been of the quality to resist attack thereon by the ravages of fire and the like and generally have been unable to merit a fire rating that would qualify as a one hour fire-resistive wall structure.
With the herein disclosed invention, because of the unique design of the individual panels making up the system, and because of the joint formed by the individual panels, as well as the means of securing and mounting the individual panels to form a partition wall, all of the shortcomings of the prior art are alleviated and because of the unique design of the wall system, a partition wall is erectable in many instances, in less than one-fifth of the time required for conventional prior art, partition wall systems. Another attribute of the wall system of the invention is the fact that various exterior wall finishes are already provided at the factory site, thereby obviating the need for exterior wall finishing of an extensive nature on the building site.